Indie Game: The Movie To Be Turned into HBO Drama Series

On Sunday, during one of its first public screenings at the Sundance Film Festival, word began to spread that Indie Game: The Movie had been optioned by the American TV network HBO as the basis of a fictional television series.

Indie Game: The Movie – or IGTM – is a feature-length documentary covering the development of two of the biggest independent games releases of recent years – Super Meat Boy and Braid – as well as the soon-to-be-released Fez. I’ve written before about what a massive deal IGTM is going to be this year, both within the game development community and amongst mainstream audiences, and the film had been enjoying a fantastic reception after its world premiere at Sundance last week.

However, the news that remake rights for the film had been picked up by HBO drew mixed reactions from fans after some initial online speculation that the show would be a comedy series (largely inspired by the announced half-hour running length). The makers of IGTM have been unerringly sincere in their depictions of the indie game development community, and posted a message on their Facebook page debunking the rumours, saying: “HBO has optioned IGTM for the basis of a (fictional) series. It is NOT a comedy. It is NOT a sitcom.”

The series will be produced by Scott Rudin – yes, *the* Scott Rudin, producer of The Social Network, True Grit, No Country For Old Men etc etc – and IGTM directors Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky have already spoken about their excitement at having him on board:

“We are ecstatic about the possibilities of working with this team. All you need to do is look at the list of HBO series titles & Scott Rudin’s IMDB and you can see why we think this is a brilliant thing. We want to see this show happen. We want to watch this show. “

Indie Game: The Movie is screening at Sundance until Saturday 28th January, and DVDs and digital copies are available to preorder here.